Skibbereen Town and Abbeystrowry

WITH our backs to the Town Hall we set off down Main Street, keeping to the left pavement. Skibbereen is, arguably, the most ‘typical’ of West Cork market towns, little changed in the last century.

Further down, at The Square, Main Street becomes Bridge Street and the businesses are mainly small shops. To walk down Bridge Street is to take a trip down memory lane. Most West Cork towns still have a few ‘cottage’ businesses; nowhere are there so many as in Skibb. Happily, some of the shop fronts have changed little and add a charm to the town.

At a pub on a corner called Baby Hanna’s, we turn sharp left. The Cutting — the name describes the topography — is a sort of Hanging Gardens of Skibbereen, a chasm almost Amazonian in ambience, green, wet, glistening and exotic. A dozen varieties of wild fern and succulents root on the rock walls, down which small freshets flow.